How to get Page-Up/Down to scroll windows in Jira cloud

[Eric Tiffany]

If an issue in Jira has a lot of comments, there will be a scrollbar.  I can scroll these comments up/down using the scrollbar, or using the trackpad on my laptop, but the page-up/page-down keys on my keyboard are completely ignored.   Since I am using an external keyboard about 99% of the time, this is extremely irritating.  This is using Jira in Chrome on a Mac.

Just about every other Chrome window will scroll when page-up/down keys are used, so someone must have deliberately crippled the Jira web interface.  How can we get this problem fixed?

[Mykenna Cepek · Accepted solution]

I also use a Mac with Chrome for Jira Cloud, and I've been able to get the Page Up and Page Down keys to work in that "Activity" area - sometimes.

What I've discovered is that there are two or three panes in the two main views of issues within a Board:

• Pop-up View: Clicking on an issue in a board "pops up" an issue dialog, and that has three panes: a top (header), bottom-left (issue), bottom-right (field detail).
• Page View: Viewing an issue as a whole page/tab in the browser has two panes: left and right.

The key seems to be to have the focus in the left pane, and then the paging keys work -- regardless of which view is in use. So the trick becomes getting the focus somewhere in that pane.

(An assumption here is that the issue History or Comments or Worklog tab has a lot of entries, which will cause the left pane to scroll).

Unfortunately, I didn't find anything trivially easy to get focus in that left pane every time. So I can validate your frustration. Even clicking one of the three "Activity" tabs did not seem to reliably set focus in that pane. (I suspect they might be disabled for focus if they have no content, but that doesn't explain why a content-full tab doesn't get focus when clicked.)

Workaround:

If you have Keyboard Shortcuts enabled, then the quickest way I found to reliably get focus into that left-pane (of either View) is to:

• Bring the issue up
• Press the 'c' key to start a new comment in the issue
• Press the 'esc' key to abort that comment

The focus is now in the comment area, and the paging keys worked.

I know it's not optimal, but hopefully this is a reliable workaround for you.

Feel free to report this as a bug (after first searching to see if it's already been reported, of course). If you do, feel free to mention it here, so others experiencing this same issue can easily find it and vote for it. I will!

[Eric Tiffany]

What a comprehensive and excellent response.  If only the atlassian team was as on-the-ball.

[Eric Tiffany]

I've created a Jira bug to track this:

https://getsupport.atlassian.com/servicedesk/customer/portal/23/JST-621733

[Mykenna Cepek]

Others can't vote for JST (support ticket) issues, but once support responds with either an existing bug or a new one, please post that here so we can vote for it. Thanks!

[Oliver Mayer]

Too bad I "do not have permission to view this request" made by Eric .. 

This scrolling bug is beyond me. Thanks, Mykenna, for your workaround!

[Eric Tiffany]

Oliver - 

The Jira developers were able to reproduce this (as of Dec 23 2020) and are investigating.  I don't understand why this is so difficult -- their own JS is intercepting the key events (to make their "shortcut" nonsense work).   

Don't know when/if they'll ever get to this -- there are much bigger bugs that have been languishing for years.  

[Svante Jacobsen]

This affects me too. Yes there are larger single bugs to focus on but the vast number of minor bugs  (not a few to do with using Jira with keyboard) makes them major.

[Søren Martin Kristensen]

This issue would be great to have fixed.

It is reallly annoying and stressful to the hand operating the mouse wheel to scroll up and down long jira issues. I guess, lots of people are struggling with this bug.

But thanks a lot for the workaround to get keyboard focus to the left pane.

[joseph_brown]

Is there any intention to fix this issue? It's been well over a year. Jira tickets are completely unusable on a Mac if you're using the trackpad.

[Mykenna Cepek]

Please vote for [JRACLOUD-75167] Up/down and Pg Down/Up keys in the issue view don't work - Create and track feature requests for Atlassian products.

Votes are how the community helps prioritize things for Atlassian.

[Vivek Jain]

In case anyone is interested, I was frustrated at the lack of a solution so decided to come up with one myself: https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRACLOUD-75167?focusedCommentId=2874752&page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels:comment-tabpanel#comment-2874752. Hope that helps some people.

[Mykenna Cepek]

This issue appears to be logged multiple times in Atlassian's support Jira.

Please consider voting for ALL of these issues (if they are still open):

• https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRACLOUD-75899
• https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRACLOUD-75167
• https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRACLOUD-75916

[Mykenna Cepek]

[JRACLOUD-75167] is now the one to vote for. The other two have been marked as duplicates.

[Jessica Davis]

I'm struggling with the same issue but on the board in Jira Cloud.  When an issue is completed (marked Done), the focus goes to the bottom of the Done column.  I have to manually scroll to the top because the Home, End, Pg Up and Pg Down do not work.  (Win 11, Chrome, Jira Cloud) Is there a workaround for when you are on the board and want to jump back up to the top of the board?